Mork and Mindy: A Video Novel

by Richard J. Anobile

Vintage TV tie-in paperback

Mass Market Paperback

Published April 1, 1979

About the author

Anobile pioneered the use of the movie frame blow-up technique to recreate entire films in book form. His books were valuable resources especially in a time before VCR's and DVD's and the internet. While they might be viewed as simplistic picture books now, they were an attempt at curating film at a time when it was often still an after-thought. Anobile has spent much of the rest of his life in film production.

Reviews

[Pamster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for my book club, aka the best book club. We each read a novelization and did a book report on it. I've owned this since I was six, when I wrote on the inside cover my name (middle name misspelled), phone number, address (in its entirety: "12222"), and age. Reading it now, I realized Mork is representing, in 1978, the possibility of a new form of (unthreatening) masculinity. When he comes to earth in his EGG, he hits the ground just as Mindy is fending off a man with whom she is on a date who attacks her "like a Thanksgiving turkey." She thinks Mork's a priest aka a neuter because of his backward suit, and talks to him and invites him into her home. For a moment he represents sexual threat when she realizes he's no priest, but he quickly deflates the threat by coming out as alien. Later when her dad finds out a man is living w/her, he drinks some liquor he'd been saving for her wedding night, using it instead to toast the death of his 21 year old daughter's hymen and future. His friend, a sheriff, gets Mork into the court system as a crazy person, but Mork exposes the hypocrisy of the individuals involved with his honesty, suspenders, and face-sitting. Mindy has found a man who is honest, non-threatening, possibly non-sexual, and can drink water with his finger.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

These video novels are amazing. And precious. They fall apart as you read them.

A mork and Mindy joke is “I'm a test tube baby. My father was a bottle of eye drops. The scum. He left my mom for a bottle of nose drops. I can't blame him because she had those tight labels.”